Sestina (On the Velveteen Rabbit)

Luke Tsai

A young girl sits on a curb eating strawberries,
summer rose lips curved ever slightly in a smile,
slender arms cradling a ragged stuffed rabbit.
These two are unfazed by cotton candy clouds
that hover over the bustling city streets,
content to watch the world pass with unclouded eyes.

The rabbit's once-shiny glass eyes
"What is real?" asks the rabbit,
with sudden shimmering in his sickle-shaped eyes.
The girl's pretty oval-shaped face clouds
momentarily, pausing between strawberries.
"'Real' is to be loved," she says, finally, with buoyant smile,
her lilting voice barely audible over the surly city streets.

The crooked crabgrass, the soul-stripped streets
sing to her the realness of her ragamuffin rabbit
and of her own authenticity.  She does not cease to smile
with unfading hopefulness; her crescent moon eyes,
still dancing upon sight of strawberries,
are not sullied with rotten, randy clouds.

But she is, after all, only human, and experience clouds
even a child's mind.  She walks a hundred slippery streets
while they nibble at her as if at unripe strawberries,
mercilessly.  Her ragged old almost-real rabbit
now sits on her shelf, collects dust, and occasionally eyes
his presently sporadic friend with a sad, wistful smile.

She, on the other hand, now simulates her smile,
learns to hide herself behind ecliptic clouds
that cover her from the scrutiny of intrusive eyes,
peering at her from cold, callous mechanical streets
that make her forget about herself, her rabbit
while they devour her like summer strawberries.


Now she sits eating insipid strawberries with an almost-real smile,
mere memories of her ragged rabbit lost in smothering clouds
as she stares vacuously down the bustling city streets with once-shiny eyes.